A new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of heretofore undisclosed data about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac buyback demands reveals that individual lenders have faced varying levels of exposure and success in beating back these requests. The government-sponsored enterprises joined other financial asset securitizers in making historic new disclosures regarding the repurchase demands they have made over the years based on a loan originator’s breach of representations and warranties. Rules for the new disclosures, an outcome of the Dodd-Frank Act, were developed by the...(Includes one data chart)

The massive legal action initiated by the Federal Housing Finance Agency last year on behalf of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac against many of the nation’s biggest lenders is getting ready to face its first legal challenge, and the federal judge’s ruling will determine the scope and direction of the cases, experts say. The FHFA lawsuits seek tens of billions of dollars in damages for losses incurred by Fannie and Freddie on purchases of approximately $200 billion in residential mortgage-backed securities.

Bank of America this week announced that it is sharply curtailing its mortgage business with Fannie Mae, partly because of differences over buyback demands. The company said it has stopped selling Fannie purchase-money mortgages and refinance loans that are not originated under the Home Affordable Refinance Program. The problem, BofA said, resulted from a mutual decision by the bank and the government-sponsored enterprise not to renew a delivery contract that allowed the bank to sell loans to Fannie efficiently. “While we continue to have a valid agreement with Fannie Mae permitting the delivery of...

A bill proposed by a ranking Senate Democrat would permit underwater borrowers, including those with Fannie Mae- and Freddie Mac-backed loans, to reduce their loan principal through a federal shared mortgage-appreciation program. The Preserving American Homeownership Act, S. 2093, would establish a program through which the banks would write down the principal balance of a mortgage to 95 percent of the re-assessed value of the home.

A bill filed in the Senate earlier this month would authorize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as well as Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. member banks, to enter into long-term leases to permit families to stay in their homes while also easing the pressure of unsold foreclosure inventory on the housing market. The Home Act, S. 2080, sponsored by Sen. Dean Heller, R-NV, would afford banks and the GSEs the option of leasing their real estate-owned (REO) properties for up to five years, with the additional prospect of selling the house to the renter once the rental lease runs out.

Wells Fargo sucked up more than half of the correspondent business Bank of America left on the table after deciding to get out of the business of aggregating closed loans from correspondent lenders, according to an Inside Mortgage Trends analysis. Wells Fargo increased its sales of correspondent loans to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by $14.1 billion during the fourth quarter, slightly more than half of the total increase in correspondent deliveries to the government-sponsored enterprises. Wells increased its correspondent mortgage sales to the GSEs by 87.4 percent during the fourth quarter, while...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have made far fewer repurchase demands on loans sold to the GSEs over the past three years, but their regulator says the enterprises will continue to push lenders to buy back defective loans. A new Inside the GSEs analysis of repurchase activity by the GSEs reveals that the share of loans subject to buyback demands slowed to a trickle in 2009, when just 0.25 percent of mortgages purchased or securitized by Fannie and Freddie were subject to such requests.

The departure of MetLife from the residential mortgage market in early January has been a boon for Caliber Funding, a national wholesale and retail mortgage lender looking to expand its presence in existing markets across the country and entering new markets. As MetLife exited, Caliber Funding quickly scooped up approximately 300 former retail loan officers in MetLife’s Home Loan division and announced the addition of four new regional markets. Combining MetLife’s former LOs with newly hired wholesale producers and support staff, the Dallas-based lender is set to enhance its presence in California, Arizona...

Santa Ana, CA-based CoreLogic this week unveiled DefaultView, a new, cloud-based, end-to-end servicing product that’s designed to streamline the way mortgage servicers handle loans through every stage of the default lifecycle. The new product utilizes nine modules that interconnect within its architecture to help provide a more efficient and transparent default servicing operation. DefaultView employs a master-loan architecture that provides the client with a singular view of a loan. “This design enables end users across a default enterprise to easily see a complete transaction history including workflow...

Of the $25 billion in penalties agreed upon for the multistate servicing settlement, approximately $2.66 billion in cash is going to individual states to provide relief for funds lost through servicer wrongdoing, though states are spending their cash differently. Without the settlement terms, which have yet to be released, it is impossible to know the parameters for which the 49 states in the agreement and the federal government can use their money from Bank of America, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Ally Financial. Through announcements by public officials, however, a picture of...